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In this episode, Dr. Kathryn (Kate) Graber and doctoral student Ariana Gunderson interview linguistic anthropologist Jillian Cavanaugh about all things language and value. Much of Dr. Cavanaugh's research in Bergamo, Italy, summarized here, has been on the political economy of code choice–that is, why people choose the ways of speaking they do, whether to access economic opportunities or to have a language of regional belonging, intimacy, and home. Turning to questions of authenticity and materiality, Dr. Cavanaugh discusses how to approach language not only as an expressive system but also as an embodied, material practice. We talk about how food gains value through the different kinds of linguistic labor that are undertaken in its production and ask whether language and food are analogous semiotic systems (spoiler alert: not quite). Thinking about her current work with small-scale, hyper-local sausage producers, Jillian discusses the roles of individual choice and consumption, and/versus the role of production in the construction of value. At the end, we talk about intersections between linguistic and economic anthropology in Jillian's role as President-Elect of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA). Jillian R. Cavanaugh is a linguistic anthropologist whose research, centered in northern Italy, has considered language shift and social transformation, value, language ideologies, materiality, gender, and heritage food. Her current research focuses on heritage food producers and the labor they undertake to make good, safe, and valuable food. She is interested in how people use the semiotic and material resources available to them to make sense of their pasts in order to live in the present and envision their futures. Her publications include Living Memory: The Social Aesthetics of Language in a Northern Italian Town (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and Language and Materiality: Ethnographic and Theoretical Explorations (Cambridge University Press 2017, co-edited with Shalini Shankar). Her work has been published in American Anthropologist, the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, and Ethnos, among other venues. She received her PhD in anthropology at New York University and is Professor of Anthropology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center CUNY. Co-hosted by Dr. Kathryn Graber [Link] and Ariana Gunderson [Link]. Edited and mixed by Richard Nance. .player4989 .plyr__controls, .player4989 .StampAudioPlayerSkin{ border-radius: 10px; overflow: hidden; } .player4989{ margin: 0 auto; } .player4989 .plyr__controls .plyr__controls { border-radius: none; overflow: visible; } .skin_default .player4989 .plyr__controls { overflow: visible; } Your browser does not support the audio element. References from our conversation with Jillian Cavanaugh: Cavanaugh, Jillian. 2009. Living Memory: The Social Aesthetics of Language in a Northern Italian Town. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. "The Economy of Linguistic Exchanges." In Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gal, Susan. 1988. The Political Economy of Code Choice. In Codeswitching: Anthropological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Monica Heller, ed. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pp. 245–264. Cavanaugh, Jillian R. 2023. “Authenticity and Its Perils: Who Is Left Out When Food Is ‘Authentic'?” Gastronomica 23 (1): 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2023.23.1.28. Cavanaugh, Jillian R., and Shalini Shankar. 2014. “Producing Authenticity in Global Capitalism: Language, Materiality, and Value.” American Anthropologist 116 (1): 51–64. Riley, K. C., & Cavanaugh, J. R. 2017. Tasty Talk, Expressive Food: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Food-and-Language. Semiotic Review 5: The Semiotics of Food and Language. Chumley, Lily Hope, and Nicholas Harkness. 2013.
En este mes dedicado a Argentina recibimos a Mariana Graciano (Rosario, Argentina. 1982) quien estudió Letras en la Universidad de Buenos Aires, completó una maestría en escritura creativa en NYU y un doctorado en The Graduate Center (CUNY) en la ciudad de Nueva York, donde vive desde 2010 dando clases de literatura y talleres. Algunos de sus libros son: O ar (Metrópolis, 2022), Pasajes (Baltasara Editora / Chatos Inhumanos). Platicamos de escribir desde la diáspora, migración, genealogías, de desarraigo, de cómo sería si fuera una enfermedad, de prosa y de poesía.
In the fourteenth episode of season 2, Dr. U. Grant Baldwin, DBH, Director of the Doctor of Behavioral Health program at Cummings Graduate Institute for Behavioral Health Studies, explores the pivotal role of Board Certified Behavior Analysts in addressing key challenges within the healthcare sector, while discussing effective strategies that can transform patient outcomes and experiences. Panelists include: Dr. Liliane de Aguiar-Rocha, DBH, BCBA, QBA, MCPC. CGI DBH Alumna, is a New York State licensed behavior analyst. She has extensive experience with ABA, quality improvement and crisis intervention/management training. She completed her graduate training in behavior analysis at the Graduate Center (CUNY), and her doctoral degree in behavioral health, with a focus on integrated care at the Cummings Graduate Institute for Behavioral Health. She has broad interests in Behavior Analysis, particularly in how behavior analytic strategies can be used in large scale to improve systems in healthcare. She is interested in improving the care for people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) starting at the pediatrician's office. She has worked with behavior analysis, in a variety of settings, including a Psychiatric Hospital leading a team of behavior analysts who designed behavior interventions to decrease the use of restrictive interventions during acute psychiatric admission. At the hospital, she also had the opportunity to work in several performance management and quality improvement projects where she had the opportunity to exercise her OBM (Organizational Behavior Management) skills. She is a certified ACT Matrix facilitator and uses the Pro-social Matrix in crisis-management trainings. She is a consultant who provides consultation to local schools and hospitals, as well as international consultation in Brazil, her native country. She is interested in ways to bring behavioral analytic treatment to areas with difficult access to BCBAs. To that end, she has developed a telehealth practice, where she supervises behavior analysts serving children with ASD in Brazil. Dr. Kasia Motylewicz, DBH, BCBA, QBA. CGI DBH Alumna, has worked as a lead teacher, a supervisor, a clinical director, a lead ABA trainer, and a consultant at schools, early intervention agencies, and in the private sector. She is also a former competitive athlete, karate practitioner, and a karate instructor with over 25-year teaching experience. Dr. Motylewicz's passion for sports combined with her clinical work resulted in identification of a new gap: motor impairments affecting social-communication skills in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Her culminating project combined these two areas, and resulted in a development of the Motor Assessment of Autism (MIA), the training modules for clinicians, and the functional training program for individuals with ASD. Dr. Patrycja Motylewicz, MBA, MS Spec Ed, MS ABA, BCBA, LBA, DBH. CGI DBH Alumna, is a Doctor of Behavioral Health, a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst, and a Licensed Behavior Analyst in several states across the United States. She holds an MBA, an MS in Education and Special Education, and an MS in Applied Behavior Analysis, with a specialization in Autism. Patrycja is a clinical director at The Perfect Child, which provides Applied Behavior Analysis services for children and young adults with developmental disabilities and behavioral issues. In her free time, she focuses on strength training. She is also a former competitive martial artist. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/disruptors-at-work/support
Christina Katopodis, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and the Associate Director of Transformative Learning in the Humanities, a three-year initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY) supported by the Mellon Foundation. She is the winner of the 2019 Diana Colbert Innovative Teaching Prize and the 2018 Dewey Digital Teaching Award. She has authored or co-authored articles published in ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, MLA's Profession, Hybrid Pedagogy, Inside Higher Ed, Synapsis, and Times Higher Ed.The learning process is something you can incite, really incite, like a riot. - Audre LordeCathy N. Davidson is the Senior Advisor on Transformation to the Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), a role which includes work with all twenty-five campuses serving over 500,000 students. She is also the Founding Director of the Futures Initiative and Distinguished Professor of English, as well as the M.A. in Digital Humanities and the M.S. in Data Analysis and Visualization programs at the Graduate Center (CUNY). The author or editor of over twenty books, she has taught at a range of institutions, from community college to the Ivy League. She held two distinguished professor chairs at Duke University, where she taught for twenty-five years and also became the university's (and the nation's) first Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies. She is cofounder and codirector of “the world's first and oldest academic social network,” the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC.org, known as “Haystack”). Founded in 2002, HASTAC has over 18,000 network members.Davidson's many prizewinning books include the classics Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America and Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (with photographer Bill Bamberger). Most recently, she has concentrated on the science of learning in the “How We Know” Trilogy: Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn; The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux; and, co-authored with Christina Katopodis, The New College Classroom (due August 2022).Davidson has won many awards, prizes, and grants throughout her career including from the Guggenheim Foundation, ACLS, NEH, NSF, the MacArthur Foundation, and others. She is the 2016 recipient of the Ernest L. Boyer Award for “significant contributions to higher education.” She received the Educator of the Year Award (2012) from the World Technology Network and, in 2021, the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences presented Davidson with its annual Arts and Sciences Advocacy Award. She has served on the board of directors of Mozilla, was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Council on the Humanities, and has twice keynoted the Nobel Prize Committee's Forum on the Future of Learning. She lives in New York City. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Get started with Educative! Follow this URL for 10% off: https://educative.io/educativelee The cloud has become the foundation for all the innovative technology today. This innovation is creating more opportunities. As a result, the best time to become a cloud engineer is now. Adora joined Microsoft as a cloud engineer in 2019. Getting introduced to cloud computing made her realize that there was a lot more to technology than she was exposed to. As a result, she chose to write a book that teaches about the cloud. In this episode, Adora shares about the cloud and her book. Watch the YouTube HERE: https://youtu.be/rpUS9e_oL20 ABOUT OUR GUEST Elaine Montilla is the founder of 5xminority, Inc. a company and social media brand dedicated to empowering women and minorities, especially in Tech, with a mission to demonstrate how businesses can be powerful platforms for social change. She is also the Assistant Vice President and CIO for IT at the Graduate Center - CUNY, a TEDx Speaker, and a Forbes Technology Council member and contributor. Visit Educative to start your journey into code ►► https://educative.io Explore the Edpresso platform and become a contributor! ►► https://educative.io/edpresso Don't forget to subscribe to Educative Sessions on YouTube! ►► https://www.youtube.com/c/EducativeSessions ABOUT EDUCATIVE Educative (educative.io) provides interactive and adaptive courses for software developers. Whether it's beginning to learn to code, grokking the next interview, or brushing up on frontend coding, data science, or cybersecurity, Educative is changing how developers continue their education. Stay relevant through our pre-configured learning environments that adapt to match a developer's skill level. Educative provides the best author platform for instructors to create interactive and adaptive content in only a few clicks. More Videos from Educative Sessions: https://www.youtube.com/c/EducativeSessions/ Episode 102: "The Future of Tech ... is Human." with Elaine Montilla | Educative Sessions
Linnea C. Ehri Ph.D. is an American psychologist, currently Distinguished Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Dr. Ehri received her B.S. in Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle and her M.A. in Psychology at San Francisco University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the faculty of The Graduate Center CUNY as a Distinguished Professor in 1991, Linnea was a professor at the University of California, Davis. Linnea has served on editorial boards of nine scientific journals. She has published over 100 research papers and edited two books. Her studies have contributed to our understanding of psychological processes and sources of difficulty in learning to read and spell.She has received awards for distinguished research from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), American Educational Research Association, International Reading Association, and National Reading Conference. She is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame, and past president of SSSR. She was a member of the National Reading Panel that was established by the U.S. Congress to evaluate evidence indicating effective methods of teaching reading. On this panel she chaired the committee that reviewed research on phonemic awareness instruction and systematic phonics instruction. Although Dr. Ehri has recently received Faculty Emeritus status, she continues to advise students and offer her expertise on literacy development and reading instruction. Recent publications have examined the ways in which children and young adults learning orthographic mapping and spelling.This podcast is sponsored by Heggerty. The Heggerty curricula has 35 weeks of phonological and phonemic awareness lesson plans aligned to the science of reading. Systematic daily lessons require minimal teacher prep time and take just 10-12 minutes to complete. The Heggerty curricula is available in both English and Spanish, and it's being used by thousands of school districts across the US, Canada, and Australia. Learn more about the curricula, our intervention book, and decodable readers at heggerty.orgFurther Learning and Resources from Dr. Ehri Ehri, L.C. (2020). The science of learning to read words: A case for systematic phonics instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(1), S45-S60. Special Issue: The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions. Ehri, L. (1998). Research on learning to read and spell: A personal-historical perspective. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, 97-114. Ehri, L. (2005). Development of sight word reading: Phases and findings. In M. Snowling & C. Hulme,(Eds.), The science of reading, a handbook (pp. 135-154). UK: Blackwell. Ehri, L.C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21. Further Reading and Exploration Bhattacharya, A. & Ehri, L. (2004). Graphosyllabic analysis helps adolescent struggling readers read and spell words. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37, 331-348. Boyer, N., & Ehri, L.C. (2011). Contribution of phonemic segmentation instruction with letters and articulation pictures to word reading and spelling in beginners. Scientific Studies of Reading, 15(5), 440–470. Chambré, S.J., Ehri, L.C., & Ness, M. (2020). Phonological decoding enhances orthographic facilitation of vocabulary learning in first graders. Reading and Writing, 33(5), 1133–1162. Gaskins, I., Ehri, L., Cress, C., O'Hara, C., & Donnelly, K. (1996). Procedures for word learning: Making discoveries about words. The Reading Teacher, 50, 312-327. Gonzalez-Frey, S.M., & Ehri, L.C. (2021). Connected phonation is more effective than segmented phonation for teaching beginning readers to decode unfamiliar words. Scientific Studies of Reading, 25(3), 272-285. Rosenthal, J. & Ehri, L. (2008). The mnemonic value of orthography for vocabulary learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 175-191. Sargiani, R., Ehri, L., & Maluf, M.R. (in press). Teaching beginners to decode consonant-vowel syllables using grapheme-phoneme subunits facilitates reading and spelling compared to teaching whole syllable decoding. Reading Research Quarterly. Shmidman, A. & Ehri, L. (2010). Embedded picture mnemonics to learn letters. Scientific Studies of Reading, 14, 159-182. Other works mentioned by Dr. Ehri Noam Chomsky Jeanne Chall Phonology and the Problems of Learning to Read and Write by Liberman and Shankweiler Linnea's Picks The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton A Promised Land by Barak Obama
Dr. Francoise Sidime is a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the College of Staten Island, Helene Fuld School of Nursing and Wagner College. She obtained her PhD in neuroscience at the Graduate Center CUNY in New York. Francoise currently lectures and teaches extensive skills employed in the field of biology and neuroscience. Francoise is also the founder and president of Ekarus Global Science, a program dedicated to providing academic advancements, mentorship, and research opportunities to high school students in the STEM discipline. Dr. Sidime is also the co-founder of a sister company called PreMedPro, a program that offers pre-med high school students training skills in the field of medicine. Vince Ferguson: Before we get started discussing your research into autism, tell my listeners what inspired you to go into the medical field and become a neuroscientist. Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, there were several reasons, but the one that actually sticks out was my mentor. At the time, when I was trying to pursue a medical career, we were all required to basically do research in labs because that's part of the requirement in order to get into medical school. So, when I went and I worked with my mentor, he did a lot of work in neuroscience and he had extensive knowledge and just really, really well-versed in the subjects. As a result, I admired everything that he was doing and the work he was working on. As a result, I felt that that's where I should be. Of course, when I started to operate on brains, opening them up and seeing all these intricate structures, I knew there was no turning back at that point. Vince Ferguson: At that point you were hooked? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Oh, I was hooked after that. Yes, that was it. That was it. Vince Ferguson: Wow. So, how did you get involved with autism? Dr. Francoise Sidime: So my mentor, that was a field that he was actually working on. So, his mentor prior to that worked with him when he was a PhD and a post-doctoral student. So they worked on different areas, Fragile X. And so he continued working on autism as well. When I came into the lab as his student... This particular mentor, by the way, has a name. His name is Dr. Abdeslem El Idrissi. So, when I started working in his laboratory, I found that he was working a lot on autism cases. As a result, I ended up jumping on those topics as well and I realized I liked them a lot, and that's how I got involved in the research as well. Vince Ferguson: Okay. Well, did you get involved in any particular area of autism? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Yes. So, the particular area that we actually focus on is called the Fragile X. So, because autism has a vast spectrum, as most people know, they particularly worked on a single area, which is on the Fragile X. It's called the Fragile X syndrome. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Fragile X? Vince Ferguson: No. Dr. Francoise Sidime: No. Okay. So, they worked on the Fragile X syndrome and the thing about the Fragile X is that, because autism is very vast and there's so many areas that could be contributing to that particular disorder of autism, one of the things about the Fragile X is that you can actually pinpoint exactly where the issue is, and that issue usually is on the X-chromosome. So, there's an area there that's very fragile and it looks like an arm that's basically broken, and that area has this gene, which is called the FMR1 gene. That gene is basically silent. As a result, when this gene is silent, it means that whatever that gene is responsible for, it will not do. So, that area is going to have issues, of course. So, some of the symptoms you see when this gene is silent, that patients have anxiety, hyperactivity, depression. They have increased sensitivity to epileptic type of seizures. Dr. Francoise Sidime: As a result, you can really pinpoint that, "Okay, this part is silent so it's missing. This is what we see." So, it made it very easy to pinpoint where the issues are basically happening when you focus on this one particular niche, and that's what we actually did, so we focused on the Fragile X. Vince Ferguson: Sounds very interesting to me, as a layman. Wow. It really does. Now, your research has looked at phthalates or plasticizers and how it can cause neural behavioral abnormalities, similar to what is seen in individuals on the autism spectrum. Can you tell my listeners what phthalates are and why are they of concern? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Sure, absolutely. Right now phthalates, they're actually a huge hot topic, especially in the news. So, phthalates are plasticizers, and they're used to basically soften plastics. So, an example of a common phthalate that most people are aware of is bisphenol A, which is normally abbreviated as BPA, and this is the plasticizer that's sometimes used in baby bottles. So, there's a lot of commercials that say, "Oh, we're selling BPA-free bottles for babies." So, the phthalate we worked with, obviously it's in the same family, and this phthalate was called DBP, and that's dibutyl phthalate. This phthalate is an organic solvent, and this phthalate is used basically to mold a lot of plastics. So, plastic bottles like Poland Spring bottles, for example, toys, plastic plates, hospital supplies like catheters and tubing. They tends to use a lot of this DBP to basically help to mold it. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Now, the concern with these phthalates basically, like DBP, is that they're not stable, especially when you subject them to high temperatures. So what do I mean by high temperatures? These would be extreme conditions, like if you leave a plastic bottle with water and it's outside, for example, or if you heat up food on a plastic plate in the microwave. So, what happens is that that DBP becomes destabilized because it's actually in the plastic, so it becomes destabilized, and as a result, it leaches out of the plastic and into the environment. Now, in this case, the environment would be the water that you're consuming or the food that's basically on your plate. So, the reason why we picked DBP over BPA, bisphenol A, because there were a couple of studies that were done in 2000 and they found that there were high levels of DBP that were found in urine of the general population. So, that's why we focused on this particular phthalate. Vince Ferguson: Wow. That sounds amazing to me, because again, you talked about the microwave. So many of us have used microwave ovens to heat up our food. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Yes. Especially because a lot of food is delivered in plastic Tupperware, it's so much easier to throw that food in the microwave and eat immediately as such. Most people feel very lazy taking it out and basically putting it on a glass plate or ceramic plate. So, you could see how this could also be a problem. Vince Ferguson: Is it more of a problem for younger people or for adults? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Well, that's a very interesting question. So, what we did when we basically looked at our studies, we wanted to see, does it affect adults? Which generation does it affect more? So, some of the data that we basically got were different because when you become an adult, your brain has already been formed. So, what we found was that DBP would cause individuals to become sterile. So, it created different types of problems compared to a child. Well, maybe I shouldn't use a child. I should use mice because we did the study in mice. So, the offspring of mice basically exhibited behavior alterations that were similar to autism when they were exposed to this DBP. So, if you basically get exposed to it early on in development and your brain hasn't formed, then there's a possibility that you'd have these symptoms that may be related closer to autism. Vince Ferguson: And you guys used mice as an example. Dr. Francoise Sidime: That's right. So, the reason why we use mice it's because their bodies are similar. So, their anatomy is pretty similar to ours. The structures inside their organs are similar to ours. So, of course you won't go ahead and do these studies on humans because I mean, that could be dangerous. So, as a result, we did them on mice. So, what we did was we took pregnant mice and we targeted a particular window. That window was around, I think, gestational day 10 to 20, because that particular window is when the brain of the pups in the womb of the pregnant mouse, their neurons starts to connect. Dr. Francoise Sidime: As a result, we wanted to make sure that we gave that injection of DBP prior to their neuronal networks being formed so we could see, does this DBP really affect neuronal connections? And when they do get exposed to that DBP, what happens later on when they become grownups when we have to run studies on them? How are they going to behave? What's going to happen to some of the key proteins in their brains? So, that's what we were actually investigating. Vince Ferguson: So, what were your findings? Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, what we did, of course, as I said, we injected the mice and we waited until they were born. What we did was we looked at their brains at different time points. At first natal day one, when they were just born on day one, day seven, and then also at two months of age, just to see where the changes were occurring. Behavior-wise, what we noticed basically was that their brains, basically, the way the neuro behavior was similar to what we see in autism. So, we did a couple of tests because when you're dealing with mice, you run different types of tests to see, how are they behaving? How do you see hyperactivity and anxiety and so on and so forth? So, what we found was that they had increased locomotive activity. They were extremely hyper. They had anxiety. When we did a learning and memory test, they had decreased in this test. Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, in the test, you could teach them a couple of things and later on, they wouldn't remember. Also, they had a reduction in social interaction, meaning that when you presented... So, normally mice are curious. When you give them a new mouse, a stranger mouse, they will play with that mouse because they're trying to figure out who this mouse is. But when they were exposed to DBP early, they weren't really interacting. They would just sit in the corner. They won't socialize. So, the symptoms that we were obviously observing were consistent with the fact that they had this altered inhibitory system in their brain, or what we call the GABAergic system as well was actually affected. And then what we did also after that... So, we noticed the behavior. So we wanted to see, well, the proteins that are responsible for making sure these behaviors are intact, what's going on with them? So, when we looked at them, we found that they were significantly down-regulated, meaning that the expression of them were less or they were basically affected as well. Vince Ferguson: That's amazing. Would you say that genetics play any part when it comes to autism in children? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Absolutely. I think it's basically both of them, environmental factors and genetics as well. Just like the way I've just mentioned, the Fragile X, so that's the particular area on the X chromosome that's affected. That would be genetics. And then obviously environmental, it would be something like dibutyl phthalate being exposed to the pregnant mother, for example, and then the child getting exposed to this DBP or dibutyl phthalate. So, it's definitely an interplay between both genetics and environmental factors. Vince Ferguson: Based on this study, you can safely say that humans should also be mindful of what we're putting in the microwave when it comes to heating up our food. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Absolutely. I mean, definitely we haven't run these studies in humans, but as I said, the anatomy of mice is very, very similar to the anatomy of humans. So, I would say one should be mindful of not heating up food on plastic plates. The other point that I would like to bring up while we're in that, because you just brought up a very good point, is that this DBP doesn't only penetrate our bodies orally. It could also go through the skin and inhalation as well. The reasons why we did these studies in low levels, because we wanted to see, because most people are not living by factories where you're making huge amounts of plastics, so how would these individuals get this DBP? So, clearly they have to be off low levels. So, what we also found is that, according to our research, is that DBP is used as a solvent as well. Dr. Francoise Sidime: It basically helps to make makeup, especially for young women, right? Because young women are using a lot of makeup in their young age bearing childbearing years. So, they use makeup and as a result, if there's DBP in it, it has a potential to cross the skin, cross the placenta, and then target an unborn baby. Because the molecule itself is hydrophobic, and therefore it can cross very, very easily through all these areas and target the baby. So, we did some studies just looking to see, well, if the mother was exposed to DBP, how much of that does the mother get in her brain versus how much the child gets or the pup gets? What we found was that the mother does get significant amounts in her brain, but definitely that DBP did cross the placenta and it does go to the brain itself as well. So, that was proof that it actually does reach the brain of these pups, the mice. Vince Ferguson: Wow. So, how would someone know that there's DBP in the product that they're using? Is it in their ingredients? Dr. Francoise Sidime: It should be listed. Right now, I believe by law, they should be listing whether products have DBP in there or not. That's why the baby bottles will say BPA-free. But most of the time, like when I buy my nail polish, for example, I always look for nail polish that says DBP-free so that it doesn't have it in there. The only thing is that I don't know what the rules and regulations are here in the United States, because I know that they're very slow in implementing some of these policies to stop DBP from being used as a solvent. I know in Europe, a lot of them have started to ban DBP as part of a solvent in terms of softening these plastics. But I think the U.S. hasn't quite gotten there yet, but hopefully eventually they will get there where they can ban this DBP from being used, and try and use alternatives that they can, just like what they're doing with the BPA, to see how they can soften plastic in a very different way. Vince Ferguson: Most definitely. This is very important. I can stay on this topic for a little longer, but we don't have that much time. Thank you. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Sure. Vince Ferguson: But also, I understand you are awarded the Marshall Plan Scholarship to conduct research in Austria at one of the hospitals in a town called Graz. Can you tell my listeners about that experience doing research abroad and also outside of the United States? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Yes. That was a phenomenal experience because you do all your research here in the United States, and you're always curious, and you're always wondering, "Well, how are things done elsewhere, abroad? Is it the same? Do they follow the same paradigms?" Because obviously the way that we get to graduate school and the way we apply with our GREs and the process is a little bit different than it is in Europe. So, I was really curious to see how this is actually done abroad. So, I did go to Austria first in 2011 to conduct research. At that time I was working with a team that were collaborating with seven EU countries on a project called biothane. So, they were looking at how food would affect the kidneys, and I was part of that team. And then a year later, I basically secured a scholarship to return back to Austria and work with another team, an amazing team in that same hospital in Graz and what they were working on was the brain. Dr. Francoise Sidime: They were looking at the brain kidney axis and seeing how contrast media, this is the media that's used when you're doing a scan, like if you want to scan the kidney, for example, you'd use a contrast, so they were looking to see whether that's safe for the kidneys and is the kidney basically excreted that contrast without being harmed. I learned a lot because I moved, it opened me up to other areas instead of just focusing on the brain, but looking at how the brain can work with other areas as well and other organs in the periphery. So, yeah, as a result, I was really impressed with that time when I was over there, that I decided I could come back here and encourage other students in the university to also try and apply for that scholarship so they could have the same experience and opportunity that I had. Vince Ferguson: Wow. We're going to talk about that a little later on, but how long did you stay in Austria? Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, I spent my summers there. So, the first, 2011, I spent about three, three and a half months. And then the following year, I also spent about that time as well, because I was still working on my research work back in the States. So, I couldn't stay out there longer than that. Vince Ferguson: Very nice. Good experience though, I would say, right? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Phenomenal. Yes. Really, really phenomenal experience. Vince Ferguson: Now, some of your other lab work has looked at the amino acid taurine and how that can reduce plasma glucose levels. Can this be a potential aid for those with diabetes? Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, taurine's a great amino acid. Some people heard of it's been added to Red Bull, right? Vince Ferguson: Yes. Dr. Francoise Sidime: People drink Red Bull, but most of the time they don't normally explain what the taurine actually does. But the thing with taurine is that it's a sulfur containing amino acid, and it's one of the most abundant free amino acids in many of our excitable tissues in our brain, skeletal muscles and cardiac muscles. One of the things about taurine, it's actually been important to prevent age-dependent decline of cognitive function. So, as a result, it's been shown and proven that when there's reduced taurine, and they've looked at that in mice that have a knockout for one of the steps that makes taurine, right? Because I'm trying to keep this very much in layman's terms and not use all of these fancy words. Vince Ferguson: Please, please, please. Thank you. Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, when there's a reduction in taurine in mice, they've been reported to show severe functional histopathology in the visual system, skeletal system, the heart, the pancreas and the brain. But if you increase supplementation that's shown increased benefits acting through the same organs as well. So, what we wanted to do was we wanted to look and see what would happen if we gave our mice taurine. So, we had two groups of mice, one that weren't fed taurine chronically for two months and then the others that were. We wanted to see how would they deal with glucose or diabetes. So, what we did was that we injected both groups of mice, ones that had taurine and the other ones that didn't have taurine, with a glucose shot. It's called a glucose tolerance test. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Basically we wanted to see what the results would be. So, what we found basically was that the mice that were not fed with taurine were not able to handle the glucose very well. So, they started to have huge spikes in their plasma glucose levels about 30 minutes into the test. Where the mice that were fed with taurine, they gradually increased, but not to the level that the mice that were not fed with taurine got to, and they were hypoglycemic, closer to baseline levels through the entire two hours of the test that we conducted. So, these were great findings that we found. So, I'm hoping that at some point this would be work that we could look at in humans and see whether we could get the same findings as well, because again, most of our findings are being conducted in mice. Vince Ferguson: Based on these findings, would you advise individuals to take taurine? Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, yeah, that's an interesting question. So, there was an individual that I knew that used to take taurine and consume it. He would state that, "You can use me as an example when you present your lab work because I'm living proof that taurine actually works. I'm a walking specimen." He used to have tremors, and he mentioned to me that when he took taurine, basically these tremors were reduced. Now, I think that's amazing. However, I can't give that type of medical advice nor am I allowed to, because we do our studies in mice. Most of these studies that we do in the lab, of course, like in any laboratory there's series of steps that one has to take. You do studies in mice before you move on to humans and you have a board that basically approves these different steps. But I'm hoping that, depending on how far this research goes, that maybe one day we try out human trials. That's something that I'd have to speak with my still current mentor, because I still work with him, Dr. El Idrissi. Dr. Francoise Sidime: But the exciting thing is that we're part of a taurine society. It's called the Taurine Society, and we're part of a team that, every two years, we meet up to look and see what the benefits of taurine in research, and we share our data. So, we go to different countries around the world every two years, and we share our data. So, hopefully yes, that this one day would take place where we actually do some human trials. Vince Ferguson: Yeah. Because I know that taurine is also available in certain foods, right? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Yes. So, some foods will actually add taurine into their food because they believe that when you give it, it has benefits. But what we also found with taurine is that when you give it for a short period of time, we see the benefits. But what tends to happen if you give it chronically for too long, then the reverse happens. So, the mechanism changes. So, that's why it's important to investigate this further because chronically the mechanism is different from when you give it acutely for a short period of time. That's why I wouldn't be comfortable to recommend and tell anyone right now, because of the studies that we're running, that this is exactly what one should be doing as a human, and I'm not licensed to do that anyway. Vince Ferguson: Right. Right. Okay. So, I won't mention that you recommend this to everybody, so my listeners don't go out there and run out there and get a run on the taurine market. We'll stay away from that. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Yeah. For the meantime, until we've ironed out all the kinks, if any. Vince Ferguson: Yeah. Well, let me know, okay? Please. I want to know. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Absolutely. Absolutely. For sure. Vince Ferguson: Now, you are also the founder and president of Ekarus Global Science and the co-founder of PreMedPro. Are these charitable organizations? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Well, I could call them charitable because I know it's not a nonprofit because I haven't been getting funds for it. So, this is something that I started because I saw the need for programs like this because at the college level, I was part of a minority program. Well, it was a program that was substantially increasing the number of underrepresented individuals in the STEM discipline. This program was called the LSM Program, and this was founded by Louis Stokes. So, it was called the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. What that program did for me was wonders, because it basically paid for my Master's at the time when I was taking my Master's and it made pretty much all of us who were in that program do extensive research, go and publish and not focus on working, but focus on our education. Dr. Francoise Sidime: As a result, I realized the importance of programs like this. So, I wanted to start something at a high school level because I felt it's always good to grab the students while their minds are still young and we can still mold them. I figured that's the perfect time. I like to work with underrepresented students because sometimes we don't have the mentorships that other groups may be lucky to have. I've used my previous experience and said, "Well, it's important to set up something like this." So Ekarus focuses on exposing students to research at the college level, because it's much more... How can I put it? It's definitely of a higher level than you would do at the high school level, because some of the techniques that we use or we teach the students are very different. As a result, it makes them extremely competitive when they apply to schools out there, like colleges or even prestigious colleges. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Now, I didn't only want to stay within only doing the research component, so I also wanted to help medical students, so that's how PreMedPro came about as well. I was working with my colleague, Dr. Christine Bishara, and we decided that that would be something great, where we could bring in research and medical type of guidance to young students who may be interested. Bottom line is that when you expose students early on to touching the microscope or teaching them how to use a stethoscope or using a blood pressure cuff or machine, students get to feel what it's like to be in these particular fields and then they don't think that they're so far off. Also, when they see individuals like yourself, maybe they see a minority, a female wearing a lab coat, it doesn't look foreign and they could say, "This is something I would like to be, and I know it's possible because if she could do it, so can I." Vince Ferguson: Wow. Love it. Love it. Love it. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Thank you. Vince Ferguson: Really, role models are so important. Mentors, mentorship is so important and that's what you're doing. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Absolutely. Vince Ferguson: It's great. Dr. Francoise Sidime: It happened to me. I've had great mentors. The process itself is very vigorous to get into, and that guidance is key because those mentors have walked that journey. They know what it takes. They know when these deadlines are. So, it's important that you also teach the younger generation that's coming about that these are the deadlines, so this is how you have to be vigorous. You have to start off in college with a 4.0 GPA and try and keep it at a 4.0, so you don't ruin your chances of trying to get into medical school, for example. Vince Ferguson: Do students working with Ekarus get the opportunity to conduct research abroad? Dr. Francoise Sidime: Yes. So, one of the things that we started with some of my mentors... So, there's one mentor I haven't mentioned who was part of the LSM program, Dr. Claude Brathwaite, who played a huge role as well in my journey in becoming a neuroscientist. So, he started the Global CUNY project that allowed college students to basically go abroad and do research. What we decided was we could expand that and start doing it in different parts of the world, of course. So, I thought that this would be great for Ekarus as well, if the high school students are able to do that, where they can go abroad as well and do research. So, some of the countries... My mentor, Dr. Abdeslem El Idrissi, from Morocco, so we usually send students to Morocco to do research out there. Vince Ferguson: Wow. Dr. Francoise Sidime: We allow them to also experience the culture by going to cities like Casablanca, Fez, Taounate, for example. So, as a result, this is how I decided that high school students also should be given that opportunity to go abroad and start doing the research. Because if they're doing it here in the States, then there's no difference if they can do it abroad as well. Vince Ferguson: Wow. That is so amazing. That is so powerful. I really appreciate- Dr. Francoise Sidime: Thank you. Vince Ferguson: Yes. What you're doing is awesome, and I actually have more questions, but I'm not going to ask them because I'll be on here for hours with you, Dr. Sidime. Dr. Francoise Sidime: No problem. Vince Ferguson: But where can my listeners find out more about you and your work? Dr. Francoise Sidime: So, I have a website www.ekarus.com. That's spelled E-K-A-R-U-S.com. So if you go there, you'll be able to see information about Ekarus, and also the PreMedPro as well. If you go to www.premedpro.com, that also will lead you to the medical part for the high school students. I'm also on Instagram as well, and the Instagram handle is @ekarusglobalscience. So again, spelled Ekarus the same way, global science, all one word. So, we're on Instagram as well. When they go on, they'll be able to see young high school students like themselves, minorities as well, conducting research in a lab, presenting their research, doing dissections, so that they can get a feel. And also speaking as well because they teach other students what they're doing in the lab as well, so that they can get insights on what's actually happening at Ekarus. Vince Ferguson: Dr. Francoise Sidime, on behalf of Body Sculpt of New York and Six Weeks to Fitness, I truly want to thank you for coming on my show today. Dr. Francoise Sidime: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. The honor is really mine. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Vince Ferguson: To my readers and listeners, I truly hope this program was informative, encouraging, and inspiring, and that you will continue tuning in to our Six Weeks to Fitness podcast. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the show, please leave them on my Six Weeks to Fitness blog at www.sixweekstofitness.com or email me at vince@sixweeks.com, and please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
Let’s talk about the power of mentoring POC within the ranks of corporate America to bring about change. Women of color can’t stand in line to be picked for leadership roles, we have to ask for the opportunities and not be afraid to take that step. Elaine Montilla has put that power into her TEDx Talk, The Value of Mentoring Women and Minorities in Tech. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmKE-Oc-Qu0) and also stating that staying feisty in tech is a strength. In this podcast, we talk about the journey into tech, coming from the Dominican Republic at age 16 not knowing English, to the lack of leadership within ERG’s groups at big tech, which Elaine has written about on her website, 5xminority.com (https://5xminority.com/) , as a Forbes Technology Forum contributor writer. As strong women in tech, our challenges to our ascent into leadership roles, C-Suite or just starting our business, is so exhausting that we need to find our support communities that are led by mentors or internal leadership that are not always within your company, University or household! As she has stated, “we need new voices at the table or bring the table you built with you!” YES! We are both aligned in this purpose as our path, to keep building the confidence bridge and to be mentors to those who have a hard time seeing themselves going into leadership roles or opportunities that are not reflected in the tech industry or in STEM. We ended on Elaine’s poetry “How Dare You Get Angry”, (https://5xminority.com/how-dare-you-get-angry) which summed up our whole conversation, be your authentic self and challenge the status quo! We agreed that we need to trust ourselves more and that you can do what you put your mind to, and ask for support in those larger opportunities. We See YOU and keep going! We got you! Gracias.
We present discussions on three timely topics, all in Yiddish: (1) COVID-19: a roundtable discussion of the novel coronavirus, aka "Covid-19", with special guests Avremi Zaks, the host and producer of the Israeli Yiddish radio show Kan Yiddish (info on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/181106619326190/) Joining in the discussion is regular co-host Sholem Beinfeld, Co-Chief Editor of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Washington University, and Mark (Meyer) David, host and producer of The Yiddish Voice. We also get a special report on COVID-19 from Alex Dafner, Yiddish presenter for Australia's SBS Hebrew and Kadimah radio shows. (2) (Continuation from last week:) LEGACY OF BLOOD: Elissa Bemporad, author of the new book Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (Oxford University Press, 2019), is interviewed by Sholem Beinfeld. This is the first half of a 2-part interview, and begins at approximately the midpoint of the show. Elissa Bemporad is the Jerry and William Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the Holocaust and an associate professor of history at Queens College and The Graduate Center - CUNY. Her previous book, Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk (Indiana University Press, 2013), was the winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. (Publisher info: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/legacy-of-blood-9780190466459) (3) Eli Rosen, actor (in the role of the Rebbe) as well as Yiddish translator, coach, and cultural consultant for the new Netflix miniseries Unorthodox, which deals with life in a NY Chassidic community, and features dialog mostly in Yiddish by an international cast of actors, mostly non-Yiddish speaking -- it's coming out released this week on Netflix! Info: Eli Rosen: http://elirosen.net/ Unorthodox: https://www.netflix.com/title/81019069 (NOTE: this is a preview excerpt of a longer interview to be aired in a future program.) Greetings for Pesach: thanks to Motl Murstein of Brookline, MA, who recorded his bagrisung for Pesach, with a wish for the end of this mageyfe; and, from our archive: the late Max Gelerman of our sponsor The Butcherie in Brookline. Wishing you a kosher Pesach - Good Yontev! אַ כּשר׳ן פּסח! Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz Outro instrumental music: Itzhak Perlman, Dov Seltzer, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra: Afn Veg Shteyt A Boym Air Date: March 25, 2020
We present discussions of two important and interesting topics, all in Yiddish: (1) COVID-19: a live roundtable discussion of the novel coronavirus, aka "Covid-19", featuring special guests: Dr. Zackary (Sholem) Berger, who teaches at Johns Hopkins medical school, is an active primary care doctor in the Baltimore area, and is the author of Talking to Your Doctor: A Patient's Guide to Communication in the Exam Room and Beyond; and Rukhl Schaechter, editor of the Forverts (Yiddish Forward) newspaper, which is providing extensive coverage of the coronavirus, especially in the Jewish community, on a daily basis. Joining in the discussion is regular co-host Sholem Beinfeld, Professor of History, Emeritus, at Washington University, and Mark (Meyer) David, host and producer of the program. (2) LEGACY OF BLOOD: Elissa Bemporad, author of the new book Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (Oxford University Press, 2019), is interviewed by Sholem Beinfeld. This is the first half of a 2-part interview, and begins at approximately the midpoint of the show. Elissa Bemporad is the Jerry and William Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the Holocaust and an associate professor of history at Queens College and The Graduate Center - CUNY. Her previous book, Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk (Indiana University Press, 2013), was the winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz Outro instrumental music: Itzhak Perlman, Dov Seltzer, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra: Afn Veg Shteyt A Boym Air Date: March 18, 2020
In this episode of The Gotham Center podcast "Sites and Sounds," Barbara Christen talks about the Brooklyn Army Terminal, the military site-turned-manufacturing complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, designed by the famous architect Cass Gilbert. Christen, who holds a PhD in architectural history from The Graduate Center (CUNY), is the author of a celebrated biography of Gilbert, who gained a national reputation for designing the Alexander Hamilton custom house and pioneering skyscrapers downtown, like the Woolworth. Here, she tells us about Gilbert’s commission in the last year of World War I: to build a cargo station, later the largest military supply base in World War II, and since then, a commercial warehouse and space for light industry. For more podcasts like this, and for more Gotham Center programming, visit us at GothamCenter.org and sign up to our mail list. Thanks for listening.
In this interview, Dr. Michelle Fine makes the argument for participatory action research as a sophisticated epistemology. Her work uncovers the willful subjectivity and radical wit of youth. In the last ten minutes, she gives some concrete recommendations for setting up a classroom that recognizes and values the gifts that students bring. Please check out her publications on https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle_Fine and her latest book Just Research in Contentious Times (Teachers College, 2018). Michelle Fine is a Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, Women’s Studies, American Studies and Urban Education at the Graduate Center CUNY. Thank you to Dr. Kim Case and Professor Tanya L. Domi.
In this four-speaker panel, professors, artists, and activists delve into the ongoing re-evaluation of public monuments and memorials, particularly those in New York City (NYC). Dr. Harriet Senie, professor of art history at The Graduate Center CUNY, offers insights into the decision making process of the 2017 Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, an initiative convened to advise NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio about controversial monuments and markers on city-owned land. Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, professor of history at Queens College CUNY, details the work of J. Marion Sims, who developed gynecological procedures by practicing on the bodies of enslaved black women. Marina Ortiz, activist and founder of East Harlem Preservation, discusses the decades-long fight to remove an East Harlem statue of Sims. Francheska Alcantara, artist and activist, explores the ways in which art can and should engage social protest. This panel took place on June 13, 2018, as the first program in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective. The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center/CUNY, a leader in the struggle for economic and social justice, believes policy of the administration has brought people together in resistance - that everybody is in it for everybody else.
Iqbal Akhtar, Associate Professor, Florida International University, “The Indic Chronicle of Light from Zanibar” Kim Wortmann, PhD Student, Harvard University, “Zanzibar and Oman: Ibadi Revival in an East Africa town” Caity Bolton, PhD Student, Graduate Center CUNY, “Divine Science: Knowledge, Islamic Education and Development in Zanzibar” Ahmed Sharif, PhD student, NYU, “Somalia, Sudan, and the rise of Scholar Politics in the ICU” Panel chair: Kai Kresse, Columbia University Texts, Knowledge, and Practice: The Meaning of Scholarship in Muslim Africa website: http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/islamafrica Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.
Iqbal Akhtar, Associate Professor, Florida International University, “The Indic Chronicle of Light from Zanibar” Kim Wortmann, PhD Student, Harvard University, “Zanzibar and Oman: Ibadi Revival in an East Africa town” Caity Bolton, PhD Student, Graduate Center CUNY, “Divine Science: Knowledge, Islamic Education and Development in Zanzibar” Ahmed Sharif, PhD student, NYU, “Somalia, Sudan, and the rise of Scholar Politics in the ICU” Panel chair: Kai Kresse, Columbia University Texts, Knowledge, and Practice: The Meaning of Scholarship in Muslim Africa website: http://hds.harvard.edu/texts-knowledge-practice-africa Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.
In this episode of the Takshashila Podcast, Hamsini Hariharan sits down with Manu Bhagavan to discuss authoritarianism, internationalism and globalisation. Manu Bhagavan is a Professor of History and Human Rights at Hunter College and the Graduate Center-CUNY. Hamsini Hariharan is a research scholar at The Takshashila Institution. Further Readings: 1. Manu Bhagavan's article in Quartz: http://qz.com/643497/we-are-witnessing-the-rise-of-global-authoritarianism-on-a-chilling-scale/ 2. Ramanjit Duggal in Logos on the failures of Internationalism: http://logos.nationalinterest.in/2016/08/when-internationalism-fails/ 3. Washington Post on authoritarianism in the West: http://logos.nationalinterest.in/2016/08/when-internationalism-fails/ External Audio used in this podcast: 1. Donald Trump's Speech at Manchester, New Hampshire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnoU0wHIsMo 2. Background Music: Cool Ride. Cool Ride by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: audionautix.com/ Podcast Image taken from https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.digication.com/M2592e6b312de975fe6ab450451b8ae43.jpg
Distinguished Professor Nancy Foner reminds us that while current immigrants are different-coming from different places-than earlier immigrants, they come for the same reasons: freedom from wars, economic opportunity, a better life for their children.